A contrarian blog, because the majority is wrong about a lot of stuff.

December 10, 2012

The real story of Hanukkah

Antiochus IV Epiphanes ruled the land of Israel (as well as much larger area of the Middle East) as one of the successors of the three generals to whom Alexander the Great left his kingdom after he died. According to 1 Maccabees, he wanted to unite the citizens of his empire behind the Greek religion, and declared that all of the Jews had to convert. There were a lot of Jews who went along with this. No doubt, they liked the idea of being able to eat delicious foods like pork, and the Greek culture was more advanced than Jewish culture.

But Mattathias, a Jewish priest in charge of the town of Modin would have none of this. When Antiochus sent some of his officers to convert the town, Mattathais killed one of the officers, as well as a Jew who publicly converted.

Mattathias then led a bunch of renegades into the desert and they started gathering an army. There was an early battle which occurred on the Sabbath, and the Jews refused to fight because it was the Sabbath. As a result, Antiochus’ army slaughtered a thousand Jews. After that, Mattathias said there would be no more of this not fighting on the Sabbath. This was a lesson the Jews had to relearn in 1973 when the Muslims attacked them on Yom Kippur.

After Mattathias died, he son Judas Maccabeus took over. Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus were badass. Not only did they kill a lot of gentiles, the also killed Jews who had abandoned their religion. The real miracle of Hanukkah is that Judas Maccabeus was able to defeat the gentiles with a much smaller guerilla army. After Judas Maccabeus took over the temple, they had eight days of celebration and he declared those eight days should be celebrated in future years. Thus the holiday of Hanukkah. However, the story didn't end with the re-dedication of the Temple; there were many years of fighting which followed.

The alleged “miracle” about the light burning for eight days was never part of the original story. This was made up by pussy pacifist rabbis hundreds of years later who wanted to de-emphasize the martial nature of the holiday.

If Judas Maccabeus were in charge of modern-day Israel, he would force all of the Palestinians to convert, or boot them to the other side of the Jordan River. He would tear down that mosque that was built on top of the Temple and reconstruct the Temple.

Hanukkah is an obsolete holiday because Jews should be celebrating their victories over Muslims since the founding of Israel and not stuff that happened two thousand years ago. Pacifist Jews who don't want to reclaim the entire land of Israel for Jews and who don't want to tear down that mosque that's defiling the holiest site of Judaism are not honoring the holiday of Hanukkah.

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It occurs to me that this would make a great videogame. You play Judas Maccabeus, and the goal is to kill gentiles with your sword, and after you kill a lot of gentiles your level increases and you learn "spells" which are invoked with Jewish prayers, and you would see Hebrew letters going across the screen. After you capture the Temple, you'd get extra bonuses from going there to sacrifice animals. Eventually, when you are high enough level, you will be able to kill Antiochus himself and free the Jews.

Good post. You might like the other Books of Maccabees. All kinds of interesting details come up, like an embassy from Rome and another from Sparta which claimed the Spartans were descended from the Tribe of Dan, post-Assyrian exile.

Some quibbles:
1) in 1973 there was no question of whether fighting was permissible.
2) the Rabbis were neither pussies nor pacifists; they were a national leadership dealing with the aftermath of a failed revolt which led to the destruction of the Temple, mass enslavement and murder, and were trying to prevent a part 2 which would complete the job.
3) the Hasmoneans' forcible mass conversion of the Idumeans/Edomites (which was contrary to halakha in the first place) backfired; the converts' descendants were a major cause of the unfortunate events with Rome mentioned above. In general, the Hasmoneans proved to be a less than ideal national leadership. This was predetermined by the fact that they were not really eligible for kingship, being hereditary priests.
4) Hanukkah is not an obsolete holiday. The State of Israel and its victories over the Muslims can't really be compared, for several reasons. The Muslims were never as formidable as the Greeks and they were never a threat to the observance of Judaism's fundamental commandments such as circumcision and learning Torah. More importantly, where the Maccabees at first were religious leaders who used their victory to resanctify the Temple and reestablish worship, the current state's leadership has held values closer to the Greeks whom the Maccabees were fighting.
5) Of course, a leadership which was Jewish in the full sense of the word would rebuild the Temple, reestablish the Sanhedrin and force the Arabs to live either as Gerei Toshavim or outside the Land (which, incidentally, extends beyond the Jordan.) A fun mental exercise is figuring out the geopolitical changes necessary to enable such a chain of events.

I like it. I'm not Jewish, but I'm certainly sympathetic to the Israelis. They've built a prosperous democratic state out of pretty much nothing, and they treat their own Arab citizens better than most Arab regimes treat their own people. The Palestinians are wretched, but none of the other Arab "brother" states - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., want them. So the Palestinians listen to the radicals from the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah and shoot rockets into Israel. What can they possibly expect to gain from such stupidity? How would, say, China react if the Vietnamese were shooting rockets into its territory? Or India, if Pakistan were doing the shooting? Or the US, if the rockets came from Cuba? I think we know the answer.

I've been to the Middle East, although I lay no claim to being any sort of "expert" on the region, but I do know that there's one thing the Arabs respect - power. Don't bother playing nice with them - they take that as a sign of weakness. A knife to the throat, a boot to the face, a bullet to the head - that's the language they understand - and respect. The Israelis should give the Palestinians a final warning - the next rocket attack attack will be met with a Vernichtungskrieg - Israel will invade Gaza and kill as many Palestinians as possible, a few score thousand, at least. And every effort will be made to exterminate the terrorists and their extended families. Many of the Arab regimes would howl, of course, but they won't do anything about it and may secretly be pleased -they don't like the Palestinians either. That should take care of the rocket attacks for a long time.

In short, a rabid band of fanatically religious wingnuts defeated the forces that represented science and reason. This triumph led to Christianity, Islam, the Dark Ages, and culminated in Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party.

This is why it's so odd that it's mostly liberal, secular Jews in the US who push Hanukkah in everyone's face since it was their own intellectual forbears who were getting slaughtered by the Maccabees. It would be like monarchists celebrating Bastille Day. It suggests to me that the liberal Jews celebrating Hanukkah either (a) are totally ignorant of the actual history, (b) have a chip on their shoulder about living in a Christian society and just want to interfere with Christmas, or (c) both.

[HS: It's (a) and (d) which is that they want to have their own holiday near Christmastime so they don't feel left out.]

I did not learn this story until very recently. For reasons which I have not delved into, the books of Maccabees are excluded from the Protestant Old Testament - I think it may have something to do with them being too secular, although that didn't stop the inclusion of the book of Esther.

I have heard that Catholics do have them in their canon but Catholics don't strike me as very much into scripture reading, so it is not surprising that there is little public knowledge of the history of Hanukkah.

"After Mattathias died, he son Judas Maccabeus took over. Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus were badass. Not only did they kill a lot of gentiles, the also killed Jews who had abandoned their religion. The real miracle of Hanukkah is that Judas Maccabeus was able to defeat the gentiles with a much smaller guerilla army"

"No doubt, they liked the idea of being able to eat delicious foods like pork, and the Greek culture was more advanced than Jewish culture. "

The cult of Yahweh was never as singularly prominent in ancient Israel as you would think. Other gods competed with Yahweh throughout Israel's history. When archaeologists dug up some remains in Jerusalem they hit some levels that dated from David's time, and they found an astonishing number of Canaanite fertility artifacts mixed in, making it clear that many citizens worshipped multiple deitities side by side.

The entire body of Hebrew scriptures were put together with the later purpose of admonishing those who refused to worship Yahweh solely by showing that every bad event in Israel's past come about through lack of proper religious devotion.

There's your iOS app idea, Siggie. Sell it for .99 cents, and let people buy virtual shekels via in-app purchases that they can use to buy more weapons, armor, etc. Build in social sharing (via Twitter, FB, etc.), then give out promo codes to electronics shops in Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

"Antiochus IV Epiphanes ruled the land of Israel (as well as much larger area of the Middle East) as one of the successors of the three generals to whom Alexander the Great left his kingdom after he died."

I don't think Alexander left his empire to anyone. There were civil wars of sorts among his empire after he died, and Alexander's son was killed to prevent him from claiming the throne.

"In short, a rabid band of fanatically religious wingnuts defeated the forces that represented science and reason."

What Alexander left behind in Asia (what the Maccabees fought against) wasn't really a pure Greek culture. Alexander was more of a multiculturalist than an exponent of Greek culture. He realized that it wasn't possible (or maybe even desirable) to Hellenize the rest of the world, so he envisioned more of a melding of cultures. Alexander himself married a Persian and started dressing like one. The Jews didn't revolt against Alexander, who gave them autonomy. The revolt Siggie describes above took place more than a 100 years after Alexander's death.

How come Half Sigma celebrates this but denounces Mohamed? He basically created a new religion out of nothing and vanquished far more numerically superior enemies with fanaticism. Key to success was Islam's militancy and promise of sexual rewards in the afterlife for it's warriors like this harem.

Herod the "Great" was of Nabatean or Edomite descent so the forced conversion policy backfired pretty severely. Although agnostic I am tempted to attribute Herod's death to divine intervention, due to the unpleasantness of Fournier's Gangrene.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes wad a beta male prole, who wasted most of his life on value transference instead of value creation and denied HBD. The only reason he is remembered is so SWPL can act like DWL and improve their social status RE alpha history nerd based game, securing their children a place at HPY, but not MITCITS, because only icky white males and ragin' Asian omegas go there. In fact , it was not until Moses ( an alpha douche asshole who slept with 10s of thousands of 10s) that Jews had their own sexmaster role model which, of course is what the "burning bush) was really about(venereal disease). Yes, hanukah, like all things in life, is REALLY about pumping and dumping sluts you meet at a bar,, which is why, while you are at temple, your wife/ girlfriend/ sister/mom/ all of the above is getting knocked up by a black, criminal, illegal immigrant, grade school dropout, aloof stud. TRADITION!

The equivalent modern revolt to Hanukah would have been the Iranian revolution in 1979. Inept leadership causes a massive religious revolt that creates a corrupt and religiously intolerant society. One reason the Romans took over Judea so easily was that almost all the Jews were sick of the Hasmoneans by then. I first learned the truth from a Hasidic rabbi I used to study with who said that Hanukah was not only a revolt against the Greeks but also against the Hellenized Jews. Since I would have been a Hellenized Jew if I lived in that time it became hard for me to celebrate the holiday. Anyway there is always Purim.

Don't be so fast to identify youself ith the Hellenized Jews. The portrayal of the ancient Greco-Roman pagans as enlightened, scientific, nearly modern is a latter day anti-Christian propaganda. Chesterton wrote about that. In reality, not only those pagans were quite nasty, they were quite alien to us. In many respects we, the modern people, are closer to Mattathias Maccabeus.

If you ever make the app you can include a bonus round where jews have to dodge evangelicals trying to convert them. Or you could make a gentile version where they dodge mormons and jehova's witnesses instead.

The story sounds bogus to me, as Greeks weren´t really religious zealots (as Jews were). You didn´t as much convert to Greek religion, but rather accept polytheism. Greks were fine with Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.
Jews could have kept their religion as long as they would have pretended to welcome other gods. This would have been difficult for a monotheist religion. So the real reason for te revot must lie elsewhere.

"for reasons which I have not delved into, the books of Maccabees are excluded from the Protestant Old Testament - I think it may have something to do with them being too secular, although that didn't stop the inclusion of the book of Esther."

The reason is that Martin Luther could not find Hebrew versions of the Deuterocanonical books. He had the idea that if there wasn't a Hebrew text of an OT book, it shouldn't be in the Bible. The irony is that the Hebrew he was looking to was the 9-10th century Masoretic text, rather than the Septuagint, which was 1,000 years older than the Masoretic and was the version of the OT quoted in the NT.

It is also worth noting that the Deuterocanon was in the King James Bible until the early 19th century. This is something not well known to those of the KJV-Only denominations.

"I have heard that Catholics do have them in their canon but Catholics don't strike me as very much into scripture reading, so it is not surprising that there is little public knowledge of the history of Hanukkah."

The Deuterocanon is in the canon of the Roman Catholic Church and all of the Eastern churches (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox etc.). Most Christians have the Deuterocanon in their canon. The western post-Reformation denominations are the outlier in this regard. I'm Eastern Orthodox.

The main doctrinal point seen in the Maccabean account is the intercession of the saints as depicted in Jeremiah's prayers for the Maccabees.

FWIW, my experience is that most Christians, even in the "bible churches", are rather ignorant of what's in the book. But, your charge does not apply here because the account in the books of Maccabees does not mention the "miracle of the oil".